The final word:
Since its release earlier this month, millions of fans have purchased the book. Among the throng is Kara-Sha Jones, who doesn't believe the series promotes occultism nor incites kids to embrace witchcraft.Thankfully not."I think that it's a book where children can escape from the real world, but it's not telling you to be a wizard or to practice wizardry," she said. "There are other things like Barney, but that's not telling you to be a big purple dinosaur."
Given the veritable deluge of glurge that inundates the internet on a daily basis, I'm not often impressed with the trite stories that somehow motivate the unthinking masses toward lofty goals and spiritual development. I've come to accept, to my dismay, that many folks are truly moved by these maudlin, contrived tales of hope and inspiration. After all, just look at the Chicken Soup series of books.
Which brings me to this, an e-mail that blogger Mark Shea received from a reader, detailing how this person's father - away from the Church for 70 years - came running back to God.
Did I mention that this person's father is, according to the letter, blind, hard of hearing, and suffers from both Alzheimer's disease and dementia? Let's see how the drama unfolded:
Fr. Chris said, "You know, I could just anoint him and give him Communion. That'll be an easier way than via Confession." So he did the most minimal damn dab-dab anointing I have ever seen, but Edward said "Amen" almost inaudibly at every pause. Moved his lips soundlessly about 1/3 of the time during the Our Father. Then I asked him if he wanted to receive Communion. "It's my....it's my.... it's, my my med med..."Now, I'm not one to mock another's pain out of sheer spite, so please don't think that is what I am doing - but to think this man actually came to God - right then and there - is even more unbelievable than the god myth itself (ok, maybe not)."OK!" I'm still yelling. "But you understand, it's not your prescription
meds, Edward! It's God! Wants to be with you!" He murmurs, "It, it, it's
oh, oh... (smiles) ...OK."So he received, and I received.
Background: My grandmother suffered from Alzheimer's for many years - she believed a little man named Malachi lived in the kitchen cabinet next to the fridge. She believed that Lawrence Olivier stopped by for a chat one afternoon, even though he was already dead. She believed that grave robbers had robbed the grave of a child she lost a few days after its birth, nevermind that such was not the case. She had dreams of doctors cutting off her nose and told us that they were real (even though her nose was still where she last left it, sort of centered and below her eyes). In short, she was - brief moments of apparent clarity aside - a bonafide loon.
My point is that you could have given my grandmother a stuffed animal and told her it was the Super Magic Fun Pony of Good Tidings that would take her to Heaven, and she would have believed you and named the pony George and hugged him and squeezed him.
I think the old man in the letter found his pony.
I find it sad - truly sad, not mockingly, pitifully sad - that such a story brings hope to anyone, nevermind the unintended implication that those who come to Jesus so easily must have serious damage to their mental abilities.
Now, deep breath everyone, before you flip out and start telling me how insensitive I am, let me say that I wish nothing but the best to this person's father. I hope he is around long enough for us to find a way to beat this horrible disease - my grandmother wasn't so fortunate.
That said, I find using the old man's obvious incapacitation to bolster one's own faith as absurd and shallow as the (understandably Pollyanna) parents of Down's syndrome children who say we have so much to learn from their kids because they are always so full of joy and goodness.
Sorry, folks, but the inability to be any other way - or choose any other option - is not a blessing, but a curse.
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REUTERS: More Brain Power Needed for Mandarin Than English
Mandarin speakers use more areas of their brains than people who speak English, scientists said on Monday, in a finding that provides new insight into how the brain processes language.Unlike English speakers, who use one side of their brain to understand the language, scientists at the Wellcome Trust research charity in Britain discovered that both sides of the brain are used to interpret variations in sounds in Mandarin. "We were very surprised to discover that people who speak different sorts of languages use their brains to decode speech in different ways; it overturned some long-held theories," said Dr. Sophie Scott, a psychologist at the charity.
Now that we as a species know how our brains react to languages and the amount of processing it takes to employ and comprehend them, wouldn't it make sense to minimize the processor and memory overhead necessary to use them?
Of course, with all that freed up brainpower we English-speakers have available, we haven't really done much with it.
And one of the highest order at that.
Remarking on the recent Supreme Court decision to strike down Texas' sodomy law, he said:
"I have this fear that this zone of privacy that we all want protected in our own homes is gradually - or I'm concerned about the potential for it gradually being encroached upon, where criminal activity within the home would in some way be condoned," Frist told ABC's This Week.So, Billy Bob, let me get this straight - you don't want the courts to define a zone of privacy - you don't want it encroached upon - yet that is precisely what anti-sodomy laws do: they tell consenting adults how to behave within the privacy of their own homes!"And I'm thinking of - whether it's prostitution or illegal commercial drug activity in the home - ... to have the courts come in, in this zone of privacy, and begin to define it gives me some concern."
Have you ever had a consistent line of thought occupy that tiny space between your ears, you intolerable nitwit?
At least you didn't go for the "if we legalize gay love, soon everyone will be butt-humping their dog" line of argumentation, opting instead for the prostitution and drug dealing angle. Hey, at least we agree on that - I'm all in favor of legalizing prostitution and drugs, because I'm aware that it's idiocy like yours, in the name of protecting us, that has made them such lucrative and violent trades.
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Come on, people, you knew it had to happen. There was no way I was going to spawn and then not play proud papa all over this website from time to time, right? So, I give you one of the latest photos of my little Fiona in all her glory, taken during yesterday's bath (and cropped so as not to excite any disgusting pedophiles that happen to wander into our neck of the blogosphere).
The smiling is definitely the biggest milestone to date - it just happened one day. The day before, non-smiley baby. The next day, smiley baby. Just like that. Something in her brain grew and fused and completed the circuit and - pow! - a baby that actually lets you know she's happy to see you and who thinks that your underappreciated ability to make silly faces is worthy of admiration and praise.
I love that girl of mine!
(Oh yeah, and you too Mrs. World Wide Rant!)
Maybe he went to get a sideways haircut in Louisiana.
Valuable non-existent prize to the person who catches the reference.
How often can it be said that "She was 96 and she went too soon?"
(Thursday: Sodomy is legalized in Texas... Sunday: Katharine Hepburn is dead... coincidence?)
UPDATE: As of 1:13 p.m. today, doctors and officials with the Screen Actors Guild announced that The Divine Katharine is still dead. In spite of an attempt to kidnap her remains by a group of people insisting they "know of some woods up in Maine that can help this sort of thing", hope is running out.
...one giant, waving, middle finger to Blogspot, as our friend and yours, Walter in Denver, makes the leap off the ladder and onto the surface of Movable Type.
* I'm aware that he was supposed to say "for a man," but flubbed it, Mr. Smarty Pants.
I bet if the homeowners in question owned a Metal Storm system for perimeter defense, this could have been avoided:
Burglar Jamie Terrence Williams was caught with his pants down, a court heard.I suppose, though, that if the only smear had been what was left of Mr. Williams, it wouldn't be quite as amusing a story.Williams, aged 25, of Tan y Bryn, Brynna was found by police naked from the waist down, wearing a pink shiny nightie with his genitals smeared in blue ink.
If you're interested, I've got a new post up over here.
If you'd like me to guestblog for you sometime, my rates are very affordable.
Oh lordy, Oz has been invaded by the evil of the neocons!
CANBERRA, Australia -- The Australian government on Thursday branded multilateral forums such as the United Nations "ineffective and unfocused" and said its foreign policy will increasingly rely on "coalitions of the willing" like the one that waged war in Iraq.I agree - the claim that the sovereignty of nations is absolute leads to all sorts of ridiculous positions.*Foreign Minister Alexander Downer also said that in Canberra's view, other nations' sovereignty was "not absolute."
When the anti-war left advanced the notion that war against Iraq was a violation of its sovereignty, they were apparently unaware (or unwilling or incapable of admitting) that such a claim also invalidated the invasion and division of Germany in World War 2. By that thinking, the Allies were only justified in liberating Europe and then stopping on the borders of Germany with very mean looks on their faces (after all, what Germany wants to do with its own Jews is a matter for its national sovereignty, not our concern).
This was the mistake of the first Gulf War - stopping before the job was complete - another position which the left and the UN (and Colin Powell) endorsed wholeheartedly, if memory serves. So, who knows, maybe they would have been happy with leaving our pal Adolph in power so long as we respected the sovereignty of Germany.
Hoheit über alles.
Just don't call them appeasers - they really don't like that. Of course, I don't like it when the wife says I could stand to lose a few pounds, but it doesn't mean it isn't true.
Anyway, I'm pleased the Aussies have seen the light: that the UN, based on the irrational premise that countries - regardless of size or power - will take actions that reduce their own security, is an ineffectual bureaucracy that parodies itself at every turn and that is as decrepit as its headquarters.
World Wide Props to Kathy K for the story
* This is why I'm one of those "small-L" libertarians, you see.
A new study has found that marijuana does not appear to cause any deleterious long-term mental effects.
"The findings were kind of a surprise. One might have expected to see more impairment of higher mental function," said Dr. Igor Grant, a UCSD professor of psychiatry and the study's lead author. Other illegal drugs, or even alcohol, can cause brain damage.Naturally, we can expect the anti-marijuana lobby to conveniently ignore these findings, given that their current slate of anti-pot advertisements are full of lies. You know, the ones that indicate that marijuana leads stoned people to run over little girls outside of fast-food restaurants (while neglecting that accidents involving marijuana tend to also involve - you guessed it - alcohol). The true effects of marijuana on driving are much less severe:
Both simulation and road trials generally find that driving behaviour shortly after consumption of larger doses of cannabis results in (i) a more cautious driving style; (ii) increased variability in lane position (and headway); and (iii) longer decision times. Whereas these results indicate a 'change' from normal conditions, they do not necessarily reflect 'impairment' in terms of performance effectiveness since few studies report increased accident risk.I would not, of course, support plopping yourself behind the wheel while stoned, drunk, or even overly tired; the larger point is that the evidence is mounting that marijuana just isn't that harmful.*
Yet, it remains illegal. Many people who might actually benefit from it medicinally cannot do so. Why? All because a bunch of morality mental midgets deem they should have control over your life and your body.
Contrary to what one particular lefty kook has said in the past, libertarians are not just "conservatives who want to smoke pot." I have absolutely no desire to do so simply because, and this is the same reason I don't use cigarettes, I like my lungs to work properly (my liver, well, that's a different story). However, I have no problem if you want to light up in your own home and use it responsibly (don't give it to your kids - don't get high on the highway - don't smoke it while cleaning your guns - that sort of thing).
We should not punish use, only abuse.
And, no, I don't know how this turned into an anti-anti-drug-lobby rant. But it did.
I'm done now.
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OK, how do I get one of these for home defense?
Imagine a gun that fires a million rounds a minute -- enough to shred a target in a blink of an eye, or throw up a defensive wall against an incoming missile.Hey, you never know, someone could launch a missile at my house! And, if nothing else, imagine what it will do to burglars and vandals.This is Metal Storm, a weapons system that forsakes old-style mechanics for the speed of electronics.
Strom Thurmond, infamous South Carolina senator, and sometime Zombie King of the Legion of Ancient Racist Jackasses, is dead at 100.
Or so his formaldehyde-soaked ass would have us believe. He probably joined T. Herman Zweibel on the Planet of Evil Plutocrats.
Go on, fellas, it's high time to stop flying the Confederate flag now. The last living politician who fought under it is now gone.
Check it quick before they change it: the CNN site for the SCOTUS strike-down of Texas sodomy laws (about which more later) features a picture of a lesbian lawyer (who bears a disturbing resemblance to Christian Bale in AMERICAN PSYCHO) and the caption "Historic day for gay Anericans."
I don't know why I love typos from gazillion dollar corporations, but I do. Maybe their proofreader got laid off with Ted.
As expected, the Bush administration has successfully planted evidence that Saddam Hussein was intent on his pursuit of weapons of mass destruction.*
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REUTERS: Man Loses License for Driving Lawnmower Drunk
A German gardener has been fined and stripped of his license for driving his lawnmower while drunk, a court said Tuesday.The court fined the 45-year-old man 400 euros ($460) and banned him from driving all vehicles, including his mower, for three months after police did a check on him as he was parking the vehicle, which has a maximum speed of four miles per hour.
Here in the Colonies, as the British likes to call our home sweet home, this drunk lawnmower rider would have been slammed in jail and fined heavily with the crackdown campaign about to be put in place.
Palestinian militants terrorists have declared a three-month cease-fire:
The wording specifies halting all military attacks for a three-month period. There had been concerns that a halt would apply only to attacks on civilians, but the wording says all attacks.Of course, these groups see no difference between civilians and legitimate military targets, so why one would expect them to differentiate in the document is beyond me.
Anyway - so, here we are. We have a cease-fire. And you know what that means...
THE BETTING WINDOW IS OPEN!
How long will the cease-fire last? How long can these terrorists keep to their word? Leave your best guess, in number of days, in the comments. Valuable prizes await the winner.
This is a rather self-important piece probably and not worthy of a blog, but I'm posting it as an experimental bit since it's much closer to what I normally write (i.e. mundania mixed with egomania). If nobody posts, I'll know not to do it again.
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If the once-a-week blathering of Ann Coulter wasn't enough for some of you, Instapundit says that Ann is going to have a blog in the near future.
Its name? "CoulterGeist"
Personally, I think she looks more like a vulture-picked skeleton* than a ghost, but, hey, her site, she can call it what she likes.
If nothing else, I'll check it out to continually remind myself that the far right is just as crazy as the far left. Man, if we could just get Michael Moore and Ann to breed and make babies...
* Yes, that was petty and unbecoming of me. You'll get over it.
This one courtesy of Scott and Ellen of AMCGLTD! Congratulations!
If this is the best we can do, we shouldn't expect to be buddy-buddy over beers with the Iraqi people anytime soon.
On a scorching afternoon, while on duty at an Army airfield, Sgt. David J. Borell was approached by an Iraqi who pleaded for help for his three children, burned when they set fire to a bag containing explosive powder left over from war in Iraq.Not life threatening? Not yet - but maybe if we let some of the burned tissue fall off and the wound get infected we can then help the young boy by cutting his arm off for him.* All because we did exactly nothing.Borell immediately called for assistance. But the two Army doctors who arrived about an hour later refused to help the children because their injuries were not life-threatening and had not been inflicted by U.S. troops.
Found via Silflay Hraka.
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Random Acts of Alex is giving a critical eye to the lyrical verse of the esteemed Avril Lavigne. Suffice it to say he isn't very impressed.
For those who like this sort of thing, you might also enjoy our reviews of some masterworks from Usenet songwriting newsgroups. Oh my, how hilarity did ensue!
Oh, and thanks to Tara for prompting this post. Now, everyone tell her she needs to get comments on her site.
Michele has a brand new blog. Check it out, kids. And no, it's not about babies.
Natural selection claims two victims, one dead and one probably on the way to the big house:
LAKEWOOD – A Lakewood man is dead after he was stabbed in the chest. Police say the man was killed during a failed demonstration of a protective vest Friday.As I am one to always look for that silver lining, it pleases me that at least they got their answer.Investigators say 26-year-old Gabriel Aranda and his 32-year-old uncle Amando Aranda were debating whether the vest would adequately shield a knife attack at a home at 9940 W. 20th Ave. in Lakewood.
Gabriel Aranda was wearing the vest when his uncle stabbed him, killing him.
REUTERS: Bosnian Catholic Runs 35-Hour Marathon to See Pope
A Bosnian Catholic marathon runner has embarked on a 35-hour run from the southern town of Mostar to the northwestern town of Banja Luka to see Pope John Paul (news - web sites), a newspaper reported on Saturday.Aleksandar Gola said he would run 150 miles in honor of the pontiff, who arrives on Sunday in Banja Luka.
On his 101st foreign trip, the pope will beatify a Catholic layman and urge ethnic reconciliation in the country still recovering from war.
"I know this will be a long journey. But my wish to touch the Holy Father is stronger than any fatigue," Gola was quoted by the Banja Luka-based Nezavisne Novine newspaper as saying before he set out on Friday.
And I thought it was ludicrous that someone would walk a mile for a Camel.
Usually, that is. It might even hold true in this instance if, rather than a 6-foot tall wood fence, my neighbor's home was enclosed in a 60's high-tech Cone of Silence. However, it apparently isn't to be.
So, a bit of advice for those of you looking to be good neighbors:
...until I go back out of town, which will be in about two days.
Anyway, I've had a nip or two of Laphroaig single-malt scotch, and I just watched The Pianist. The level of raw honesty Polanski displayed in the film, abandoning a lot of the cinematic trickery he's known for, rivals that of Spiegelman's Maus. So much so, and so harrowingly, in fact, that I fully expected to see the infamous panel in Maus where the Nazi soldier was dashing Jewish babies' heads open against the wall to be brought to full, sickening, cinematic reality. As it was, the various unflinching scenes were horrific enough.
Yes, yes, I'm aware of naysayers' comments that Polanski wasn't faithful to Szpilman's book, but given that he's a Polish Holocaust survivor himself, how could he possibly NOT inject his own experiences into the film?
Excruciating. That's the word I'd use to describe this film. The "extra" bits on the DVD were full of the film crew declaiming how "full of hope" the movie was, but I found myself thinking how nice it would be to see an arrogant Nazi grin disappear in a spray of blood, brains, and bone. Don't get me wrong. I thought it was excellent. But God, was it excruciating...but then, I think everyone should be forced to watch the raw footage of the Nazi horrors as Polanski and crew did (in fact, some of the scenes in the movie were recreated precisely from Nazi films.)
One thing bothered me, though. At the end of the extra footage, Polanski said that he made the film to help prevent similar circumstances from transpiring. Ever heard of Rwanda, Roman? The Congo? Cambodia?
Someday someone will make horrifically difficult-to-watch movies about those places too.
And to the jackass on IMDB who oh-so-jadedly said that the movie didn't have anything we hadn't already seen in other Nazi movies, screw you, asshole. I don't remember seeing an elderly man in a wheelchair dumped out a high-rise window into the street, then run over with a Nazi halftrack before.
Achille Lauro jokes not welcome.
In the fine tradition of RoverPundit, blogging will probably be pretty light this weekend. OK, yes, his tradition is to not blog at all on the weekends - and, the evidence would indicate, as little as possible during the rest of the week too.
I'm in the office today - and what a beautiful day it is, at least it looks like such from inside the confines of this building - working on a draft version of a project that is due Monday. I'm the luckiest boy in the world.
In closing, I've linked up a rather stunning photo of Jewel for your viewing pleasure. No, I don't know why.
The big news in Georgia today is the first ever use of hate crime sentencing. The crime definitely deserved punishment, but the fact that the piece of excrement in question received TRIPLE the sentence for using a racial slur than if he'd just hurled a few more Michelob reeking 'F' words in her general direction is a crime in and of itself that challenges the bedrock of free speech; hopefully the ACLU will challenge it as such.
OTOH, hard to feel sorry for whitetrash, try though you might (unless they're the West Memphis Three, and even then it's not so much pity as rage at ignorance).
So is it are or is it ain't
the resting vessel of a saint?
Who knows, who cares. Unproveable. Next story.
Hey kids! Let's have a sing-along! Allll together now...
Oh give me a home where the homophobes roam
Where misguided Jesus freaks play
Where seldom is heard a redeeming kind word
And we find pictures that make Pieter look gay.
(apologies to my good, gay friend Jody for hijacking his mockery of the guy)
I suppose I should make it clear why I am picking on our friend Pieter. Mostly for comments like this:
Why do I hate them? Because God does.Aww, he's a lovely specimen, isn't he?Beyond that, I also hate them because they are, pure and simply, sick. They are perverted. They are WRONG.
And especially, living in CA, I am sick to death of dealing with politically militant fags who keep on attempting to push through fag marriage and fag special rights.
I'm an atheist, as you know, but let us all pray for a very large motor vehicle to remove his hateful idiocy from the gene pool via high-speed impact in a crosswalk. Seriously, I wish no ill upon the lad, I just hope he opens his eyes to his obvious desire to see the genitals of his male friends and explores his sexuality fully - it's a brave new world, closet-boy!
Now this is almost too cool for words (although the article in question certainly has no trouble finding many of them):
A number of researchers started to look into the possibilities, but one in particular intrigued Snyder: that people undergoing transcranial magnetic stimulation, or TMS, could suddenly exhibit savant intelligence -- those isolated pockets of geniuslike mental ability that most often appear in autistic people.That's right, just by being hooked up to this machine, you too can count the number of matches spilled on a diner floor just by looking at them briefly!
He has used TMS dozens of times on university students, measuring its effect on their ability to draw, to proofread and to perform difficult mathematical functions like identifying prime numbers by sight. Hooked up to the machine, 40 percent of test subjects exhibited extraordinary, and newfound, mental skills. That Snyder was able to induce these remarkable feats in a controlled, repeatable experiment is more than just a great party trick; it's a breakthrough that may lead to a revolution in the way we understand the limits of our own intelligence -- and the functioning of the human brain in general.Seriously, this is an incredible discovery - the brain never ceases to amaze me (although the way many people use theirs never ceases to disappoint me either, so there's an equilibrium there). Even more interesting is the hypothesis that savants actually use their brain less than your average Joe - and that it's the shutting off of parts of the brain that allows other elements to astound us and inspire roles for Dustin Hoffman.
If Snyder's suspicions are correct, in fact, and savants have not more brainpower than the rest of us, but less, then it's even possible that everybody starts out life as a savant. Look, for example, at the ease with which children master complex languages -- a mysterious skill that seems to shut off automatically around the age of 12.We have plans to, in addition to English, teach Fiona both Spanish and French. This means, of course, I really need to brush up on my Spanish - seven years of instruction, near fluency, and now I can order tacos and say "thank you." My wife has it easier; she's fluent in French. With a substantial bit of German, Russian, and Czech thrown in because she's not a product of the American public education system.
In addition, I plan to play Finnish language tapes and radio excerpts for her - if nothing else, perhaps she can pick up the sounds of the language, the accent, and apply them later (because what would be more useful than a language primarily spoken in one frozen part of the world by only 4 million people, right?).
Anyway - go, read the article - we could be on the verge of a new level of understanding of the human brain. And if not, then at least it helps us draw pretty pictures of cats and dogs.
REUTERS: Police Seize Hashish Hidden in Squid Truck
Spanish police seized more than 25 tonnes of hashish on Thursday in a refrigerated truck carrying frozen squid in the southern port of Algeciras, the second-biggest haul of its kind, officials said.The drug had been sent from Morocco stashed inside the truck, the Civil Guard said in a statement.
Maybe they assumed that people smoking the stuff would get the munchies?
Nah. Only weirdos would want to eat calamari after smoking a bowl or two.
Some Christians in the UK are decidedly nervous about the rise of Paganism and witchcraft in their country. Ooh, scary stuff, I know.
What actually makes me nervous is that some people take this stuff seriously:
“The rise of interest in Paganism is damaging because it normalizes spiritual evil by presenting it as mere fantasy and fiction,” said Reverend Joel Edwards of the Evangelical Alliance, a grouping of some one million UK Christians.Pssst, Rev old chap, I have some bad news for you. "Spiritual evil" is - well - fantasy and fiction. Just because the funny costumes and chants and songs and cannibalistic sacrifices disguised as unleavened bread that you have are different from the ones of the pagans and witches doesn't mean I'll take you any more seriously.
Kevin Carlyon, High Priest of British White Witches said “Harry Potter” in recent years had continued the trend, helping create what he called “the fastest growing belief system in the world.” But it was not all good, he added.Oh, fantastic - 2000 years from now we'll be finding copies of Harry Potter books in the bedside tables of hotels everywhere.
Fresh back from a trip to Scotland to lift an old hex from the Loch Ness Monster, he warned teenagers against joining witch covens too young.Quite right - you said it, mate!
“There are some bloody weird people out there,” he said.
Unfortunately for Kevin, I tend to categorize people who dress up for Halloween and stand on the banks of a loch to remove a fictional curse from a fictional monster as, well, bloody weird.
But don't worry - religion's all about fiction, so he's in good company.
It's a busy day here at AndyCo World Headquarters, so amuse yourself with this little quiz - your Brain Usage Profile*:
Auditory: 35%So, what does it all mean? Click the extended entry. Take it for what it's worth (and it was free).
Visual: 64%
Left: 60%
Right: 40%
Thanks to Zuly for the link.
* Members of the far right and far left should skip this section, and simply assign themselves a zero in all categories.
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REUTERS: Smile -- you're on Thai temple TV
Thailand's most revered Buddhist temple is installing closed circuit television cameras in a bid to stop the dumping of pets, a local newspaper has reported.Officials at the 219-year-old Temple of the Emerald Buddha in Bangkok have set up the cameras hoping to catch a growing number of people dumping unwanted cats and dogs which are leaving droppings in areas where thousands of worshippers kneel and pray.
It's the Thai equivalent of Animal Planet meets Food Network.
